Technology and the Work/Life Balance

I'm teaching an MBA class on information technology this term. During our next session one of the topics we will discuss is the effect information technology has on the design of work and work processes in an organization. While preparing for this next class, I came across a recent Wall Street Journal article on the use of IT to develop a work/life balance. The author of the article explained how technology has enabled us to increase the number of hours connected to our work and that technology can also help us regain a proper work/life balance.

The author argued that increased meetings, inefficient meetings, improper use of reply all email responses, and managers seeing employee time as less finite as the reasons we are now spending more time outside of work on our work. This, of course, is aided through the use of our smart phones and other connected devices. Through these technologies, we can easily remain available to respond to email and get our work done outside of the normal working hours. The author provided a few suggestions for using technology (software settings) to better manage communications so that we are less likely to feel the need to work during our personal time.

The author focused on technology as a means to manage productivity inefficiencies to free us up from our off hour work time. However, if you look more closely at the efficiency problems, technology is not the root cause to the problem and should not be the main factor in any solution. The problem is not that we all have access to each other's electronic calendar or the reply all button on our email message. The real problem is organizational culture, governance, and our work processes.

While the technology provides the ability to remain connected to work, it is the organizational culture that creates the expectation or the pressure for employees to stay connected to work during off hours. Organizations may be able to place a hold on email messages during off hours but this intervention is not needed if the expectation or pressure for constant connection is not made in the first place. Likewise,  our need to keep up with work after hours is not due to technology making our calendars available for scheduling during the day. We don't need to have technology (software settings) to limit our calendars if we have proper work processes and governance in place to better streamline our work and simplify decision making.

While I may be oversimplifying some of the problems and solutions here (this is only a blog; not a book so my scope is limited), my point is that technology is not the cause or complete solution to the work/life balance. Technology is the tool we use to enable and support our business processes and communications. However, these technology tools should be applied thoughtfully with consideration to the affects on not only the work but the people doing the work.